COURAGE

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The full title of this central document in the Marian Zulean collection is Întîlnire la nivel înalt: Moscova, 29 mai – 2 iunie 1988. Documente și materiale (Summit meeting: Moscow, 29 May – 2 June 1988: Documents and materials). The book documents in detail the content of the visit to the USSR made by US President Ronald Reagan in the early summer of 1988, at the invitation of Mikhail Gorbachev.

The volume consists of a series of transcriptions of the public moments of the meetings of the leaders of the two states, four speeches by each of them, press statements and addresses by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, transcriptions of question and answer sessions in front of the press, and the answers given by the Soviet leader in an extensive interview granted to the newspaper The Washington Post and the magazine Newsweek prior to the visit. The book also gives details of the ceremony of exchanging instruments of ratification with the reference to the coming into force of the treaty eliminating medium-and shorter-range missiles, and the text of the joint statement made at the Moscow summit. Not least among the interesting features of the book is a substantial photographic archive of the state visit.

In order to understand why such a book constituted an alternative source of information, it must be recalled that, in comparison, the reflection of this visit in the Romanian press was minimal. Marian Zulean remarks: “I remember that it was just mentioned briefly in short news items. Because in fact what was happening then between the USSR and the USA did not suit the leaders of the communist regime here at all. Once I read this book, to which I added what I heard on Radio Free Europe, I really understood what had happened during those days in the USSR.”

The book is preserved in good condition in the Marian Zulean collection. It has 128 pages and was published, directly translated into Romanian, by Novosti Press Agency in 1988. The book was purchased at the International Trade Fair for Consumer Goods (TIBCO), where the USSR had a very large stand.

Croatian scholars made important contributions to the work of the Pugwash Movement by gathering primarily around the Institute for the Philosophy of Science and Peace of the Yugoslav (after 1991 Croatian) Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU/HAZU). In 1966, a group of Croatian intellectuals from the Institute, led by Ivan Supek, in 1966 launched the journal Encyclopaedia moderna: časopis za sintezu znanosti, umjetnosti i društvene prakse. It was published in all Yugoslav languages and dialects, but there were also articles in English. In addition to the central editorial office in Zagreb, it had editorial staffs in Belgrade, Ljubljana, Sarajevo, Skopje and Titograd. It was issued quarterly, although occasionally deviated from this schedule. The editor in chief was Ivan Supek (except in 1975, when the editor was Eugen Pusić). Since the mid-1980s, Supek was assisted by Nikola Zovko and Bojan Marotti (interview with Marotti, Bojan).

As a multidisciplinary journal, it promoted universalism and a humanistic orientation for science and the arts, as well as the complete disarmament and the creation of world peace. The first issue began with the “A Word from the Editors,” in which they stress: “we stand between military, economic and ideological blocs, and it is clear that in the event of a [global] conflict there can be no victory, but only a general disaster” (p. 1). They insisted on the universality of humankind: “Although the world is so fatally disunited, in every corner of it peaceful, humane and progressive thought is smouldering" (p. 3).

The goals of the journal were almost identical to the goals of the Pugwash Movement, and Supek insisted that every issue must contain something about the movement. “Pugwash” or “Peace Studies” or some column with a similar name was published in almost every issue. It would usually convey information, documents, declarations, or reports from Pugwash Conferences and other meetings. All of the contributions in the column were in English, in attempt to make the journal accessible to international scientific currents.

In the 1960s, Encyclopaedia moderna was relatively popular due to the prominent intellectuals who contributed articles to it. The journal strived for academic freedom and was even open to topics that the communist government considered undesirable, as was the case with religion (Kolarić 1973). The Yugoslav communist authorities did not like such intellectual independence, and the government reduced the funding for all of Yugoslavia's Pugwash organisations and publications. In 1976, Encyclopaedia moderna was forced to shut down because the government completely severed its funding (Knapp 2013, 99). In the 1980s, the very existence of the Pugwash organisation in Yugoslavia was questionable, mainly because Supek was out of favour with the communist regime. Still, the movement survived those trying years.

The journal was re-launched after the fall of communism in 1991, with Nikola Zovko as editor-in-chief, but its scope was oriented more towards Central Europe. It was published until 1998, and Marotti believes the journal was "naturally extinguished" because the themes of the journal were no longer as current as during the Cold War (interview with Marotti, Bojan).

Upon receiving the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits – the National Order of the Legion of Honour (Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur) in 1989, Croatian sociologist Rudi Supek (1913-1993) granted an interview to Radio Zagreb in which he talked about his life and, among other things, about his opposition activities. He was awarded due to his activities as one of the organisers of resistance in the Nazi concentration camp in Buchenwald and due to his contribution to the development of sociology as a science and his cultural work with France. In the interview, he said that five years earlier (1984), he was awarded for his scholarly work, which was, in his opinion, even more important. But that fact was ignored in Yugoslavia at the time. He stated that the authorities did not like him because he insisted on the stance that there is no socialism without democracy. He said that he was a sympathiser and a member of communist parties (CP of Yugoslavia and CP of France) from the mid-1930s to 1948, but that he later did not want to be involved in Stalinist and Comintern-type of parties.
He stated that he returned from France to Yugoslavia because for patriotic reasons, although he had much better conditions to continue his academic career abroad, in France, the USA or Canada. He also spoke about the problems of socialist systems in which there is a negative selection of personnel, stating that the monopoly of a single party promotes careerists and mediocrity. According to Supek, the advancement of society, especially in the economy, requires a free democratic political system. He also talked about his engagement in the environmental movement and his book, which had just been published in its third edition. He said that the crisis of socialism was a result of the fact that socialism had remained wedded to the concept of industrial society. He felt it necessary, globally, to transition to a post-industrial society that would not be based on exploitation of nature and humanity itself, to enter into a new type of socialism.

Besides Rudi Supek’s (1913-1993) cultural-oppositional activities as the initiator of the Korčula Summer School and as a member of the Praxis circle of intellectuals, he is also known for his engagement in the environmental movement. This was reflected in his book Ova jedina zemlja: idemo li u katastrofu ili Treću revoluciju? (This only Earth: Are we heading for disaster or the Third Revolution?) published in 1973. Supek was one of the first scholars in Yugoslavia who wanted to warn the public of the growing environmental problems of modern civilisation. This book shows Supek’s divergence from the then Marxist mainstream in Yugoslavia and most leftist philosophers, who insisted that environmental issues were, in fact, a capitalist ploy to diminish the revolutionary potential of the working class. The book critically considered the relationship between states and social systems in the field of ecology, and criticism was focused to socialist systems as well, especially the dominance of the state administrative apparatus (Cifrić 2016: 104). The book was successful, and two new editions were published (in 1978 and 1989).
In the foreword to the third edition, Rudi Supek explained that the first edition of his book was greeted with mistrust and scepticism “from both the left and the right”. The most of his leftist fellow philosophers and sociologists told him that he had “fallen for American propaganda,” while others were disappointed because they thought he would write about Croatia and its exploitation in Yugoslavia (Supek 1989a).